On January 28 this year, Malaysian influencer Imran Bard shared a 30-second clip showing an “intimate” moment between him and another local male influencer.
In the clip that has since been removed, Imran cooked a plate of Char Kuey Teow for another influencer, who addressed Imran as “Hubby” in Mandarin. He then decided to teach Imran how to cook a proper plate of noodles.
The duo were then seen standing in the kitchen together in an intimate manner, where he hugged Imran from the back while the latter did the cooking. The short clip was also accompanied by a classical Chinese melody.
The video received a lot of backlash from social media users, who were not happy with Imran’s content, and some even pointed out that the video was seemingly normalising LGBTQ elements.
“They’re starting to normalise same-sex relationships. Imran’s content used to be good.”
“This is the slow introduction before they go all out from the norm. Please avoid such content.”
Following the online criticism, Imran issued a public apology via his X post @imemerang and denied all allegations that he was normalising the LGBTQ elements.
“Yes, it was based on Western culture”
In his statement, Imran admitted to referring to Western culture for his content but made a mistake by not taking into consideration the sensitivity of the Malay culture.
“I deeply regret if my content had offended anyone.”
“But to claim that I was normalising the LGBT culture is a serious accusation,” Imran insisted.
Imran also assured that he has not taken any constructive criticisms and advice personally, and promised to be more alert in his future content.
“I will be more responsible in creating future content. Thank you for your feedbacks.”
“I know I’ll mess up in other ways in the future, but one thing I can promise it won’t be the same mistake.”
The influencer also said that it took him some time to come up with an apology because he refused to be seen as someone who “does something bad, apologise, repeat.”
What do you think of his removed content?
